Synopsis

Pierre leads the Noetic Society Parmenides study group through another morning of study. Lately we've been taking a break from the Parmenides, going through Proclus' Theology of Plato(*) instead, in order to see how Proclus lays out the 14 orders of gods implied in the Parmenides.

Today we read Book 3, Chapter 15. (We delve a little into Chapter 16 but we will start that one over next time.)

[NOTE: My apologies, everyone.. Proclus (at least here, in the Theology of Plato) has been working my last nerve. I really don't see what he's doing, and if I had to capture what I see at all, I'd just say, "He's all over the place.." Pierre admits Proclus is in this work being more of a "conversationalist" than a "philosopher". So I guess what we are doing is trying to mine as many gems from this rather haphazard mine, as we can, and put up with the lack of definitions, and inconsistencies, etc. But, the upshot is that it makes it very hard for me to decide even what points to put in any brief notes, because I have really lost so much attention/interest. Yet, there are wonderful quotes in here (mostly things Pierre says!) Even so, I just don't have it in me right now (maybe other things I'm going through, as well..) It's all I can do to even just give you time-stamps for the paragraphs we read. Blech. Hang in there, if you can. Hopefully you don't have the reaction I do. -JS]

• 0:30:00 -- Introductory discussion with Barbara of the word (epibolein) which Taylor translates as "conceptions" but which might be better translated as "direct apprehension".
• 0:10:55 -- Begin reading of paragraph 1 of chapter 15.
• 0:32:30 -- Begin reading paragraph 2
• 0:35:19 -- Begin reading paragraph 3 (last para.)
• 0:54:55 -- Begin reading paragraph one of Chapter 16
• Later, a discussion with JulieH on seeing/intellecting and the analogy at the part of diagram 1

Pierre also lets us take snapshots / photo-copies of 2 of his pages of hand-written notes regarding the order of the Mundane Gods, from his copy of the T.o.P. (the book that Rod Wallbank made for him by hand.) These are diagrams 2 and 3, downloadable as JPEGs 2 and 3 of the Download Options section of this page.

Attendees

Pierre, Barbara, Regina, David, Eldar, JulieH, JeffS

More Info

• (*) Proclus' Theology of Plato (Thomas Taylor translation): Volume Eight in the Thomas Taylor series, ISBN-10: 978-1898910-077, as published by Prometheus Trust and available in the UK through them directly, or in the USA through Opening Mind Associates.
• The NS Parmenides Study Group
• Plato's Parmenides: The Juan and Maria Balboa Translation
• Pierre Grimes and Philosophical Midwifery
• The Noetic Society
• The Pierre Grimes and the Noetic Society collection here on archive.org.

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